The present invention generally relates to wardrobes, for example closets, cabinets or the like, of a common type which have a vertically sliding door for providing access to the wardrobe. More particularly, the invention relates to a device for slowing the downward travel of the vertically sliding wardrobe door.
As known in the art, in the above mentioned wardrobes laterally hinged doors have been replaced with sliding doors which are capable of sliding vertically along lateral guides arranged on two sides of the wardrobe. One feature of this type of wardrobe is that the doors slide with a very little amount of friction.
In comparison with the traditional wardrobes with hinged doors, the wardrobes with sliding doors have an advantage in the sense that its door, when opened, does not act as an obstacle or occupy an obtrusive amount of space. Therefore, they are particularly well suited for furnishing the interiors of houses and offices whenever it is desirable to save space and to prevent the open door of the wardrobe from obstructing a passage and interfering with the user, while maintaining the same capacity conditions.
However, wardrobes provided with a sliding door also have some drawbacks. A particularly serious disadvantage is related to an excessive speed that the sliding door can attain during its free downward travel due to the small amount of friction generated by the guides. For this reason, often times the downward travel of the sliding door comes to a stop with the door violently impacting against the base of the wardrobe. Of course, this should be avoided because in the long run the impacting could be detrimental to the integrity of the sliding door. On the other hand, it would be troublesome to require the user to manually slow the downward travel of the sliding door by hand each time the door is closed.